Hackers heat French supermarket fridges, sparking fires and food losses
- A major coordinated cyberattack targeted commercial refrigeration systems across hundreds of French supermarkets overnight, remotely manipulating industrial cooling controls to trigger continuous forced defrost cycles and spike internal temperatures up to 50°C .
- The attack primarily impacted systems manufactured by Danish climate solutions company Danfoss, exploiting software vulnerabilities—previously flagged by security researchers in August—to override safety limits and run defrost heaters indefinitely.
- More than 300 Intermarché and Netto locations, nearly 100 Coopérative U stores, and several E.Leclerc outlets were hit, resulting in massive food spoilage, millions of euros in lost inventory, and localized electrical fire outbreaks triggered by overheating defrost elements.
- The Paris Prosecutor's Office opened a formal nationwide criminal investigation into the attack, while supermarket groups voiced concerns that standard commercial insurance policies may fail to cover damages caused by remote cyber sabotage.
- The breach occurred alongside a separate European retail cyber incident that disrupted website orders, delivery systems, and electronic shelf labels across Dutch and Belgian chains, including Albert Heijn and Delhaize.
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Supermarket fridges hacked as millions worth of food spoils
Hundreds of supermarkets across France have reportedly been targeted in a major cyberattack that left fridges and freezers overheating and millions of euros worth of food ruined. Hackers allegedly tampered with cold-chain control software, causing refrigeration units to reach temperatures of up to 50C overnight. The attack is understood to have affected stores belonging to […]
In France, hackers hacked into the Danfoss refrigerator control system at supermarkets and raised the temperature to plus 50 degrees Celsius, causing the products to decompose, reports BFMTV.
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